While privilege exists, justice can't be achieved.

Synopsis of Progress & Poverty

Several years back I spent a great deal of time creating a version of Progress & Poverty that included summary notes in the margin. The main objective was that HGS students, who might not have had time to complete the suggested reading prior to class, could fairly quickly absorb the main points. It was subsequently pointed out that this also helped readers to understand what the main points are, at least according to one guy who happens to be me.

At about the same time, Bob Drake started work on his abridged modernization of the same text, reducing its bulk by about 65% and aligning its vocabulary and syntax better with typical 21st-century readers. This was published in 2006 by Schalkenbach. Altho HGS/Chicago printed a limited run of the P&P with my summary notes, some of which I used in my classes, the emphasis moved to the 5- or 6-session course and the abridged modernization.

Subsequently, I revised and corrected my summary, and put it into pdf format for web posting. This, of course, isn’t the first synopsis that’s ever been done, (see this, or find the excellent work of Mike Curtis which apparently hasn’t ever been posted) nor is it necessarily the best. However, it’s the only one I know of where each phrase can be displayed on the page with the text that it summarizes.

Technologically, printed copies could be readily produced, but economically I don’t consider that likely.

The entire synopsis, including a brief introduction but without the original text, is this 39-page pdf. The individual chapters and other pieces are separate pdf’s, linked below. All the files are zipped into a single download here.